Tag: Snap

This is Belinda Bauer’s 8th book but only the second one that I’ve read. I loved her first book, Blacklands, about a serial killer, told mainly from a child’s point of view, so I was looking forwarded to reading Snap. I enjoyed it but I was a bit disappointed as I read it, as it relies quite a lot on several coincidences and some of the characters were not much more than caricatures, particularly the police, Detective Inspector John Marvel, who is a bit of a maverick and Detective Sergeant Reynolds, who in contrast, is a stickler for correct procedure.

However, I think the children in this book come across as real characters. I liked the opening as eleven year old Jack and his sisters, Joy, nine years old and Merry aged three sit in their broken down car, in the sweltering sun, on the hard shoulder of the M5 motorway. Their pregnant mother didn’t have a mobile phone with her and had left them alone in the car as she walked up the road to find an emergency phone to call for help. She never returned.

Move forward three years to find Jack, now fourteen and his sisters living alone – their father couldn’t cope after his wife had been found dead by the motorway – supporting his sisters through breaking into houses to steal food and valuables. He is ‘guided’ in his criminal activities by Louis – in the same way that Fagin taught boys to pickpocket, Louis tells Jack which houses will be empty so that he can break in without fear of being caught. Then Catherine While and her husband Adam are brought into the story, when Jack breaks into their house thinking it is empty. However Catherine, pregnant, had stayed at home whilst her husband went out and is horrified to discover that she is not alone in the house. But for reasons of her own she doesn’t tell Adam or inform the police, which puts her in a dangerous situation.

The story is well paced and I was keen to find out what had happened to Jack’s mother, how he would cope with being responsible for his sisters, whether he would be caught and whether his father would return. And I was most concerned about Catherine’s safety! So overall I did enjoy it, despite the coincidences. It’s quirky and different from other crime fiction, which is refreshing.

What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently reading: I have three books on the go at the moment, – The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, from my TBR shelves. I’m only up to chapter 3 so far but I’m enjoying his descriptive writing so much as Tom Joad returns to his family home in Oklahoma during a drought as a storm blew up and dust clouds covered everything. Tom, convicted of homicide has just been released from prison after serving four years of a seven year sentence.

I’m also reading Her Hidden Life by V S Alexander, a novel set in Germany during the Second World War, about the life of Magda, one of Hitler’s food tasters. See yesterday’s post for the opening paragraph and synopsis. I’m in chapter 6 at the moment when Magda sees photos taken by an SS officer at Auschwitz, that show that Hitler is lying about how the Reich is dealing with Jews and prisoners of war near the Eastern front.

The third book I’m reading is The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson, about the summer of 1914, set in Rye in East Sussex when spinster Beatrice Nash arrived to teach at the local grammar school. Her appointment was the result of Agatha Kent’s and Lady Emily Wheaton’s wish to have a female teacher as a Latin teacher. I’m in the middle of chapter 5 in which Beatrice is at Lady Emily’s annual garden party with the school governors, the Headmaster and staff and some of the local dignitaries. I’m finding it rather slow-going so far.

The last book I finished is Belinda Bauer’s latest bookSnap, one of my NetGalley books. It’s crime fiction about Jack and his sisters and what happens to them after their mother is murdered. Belinda Bauer’s books are so original, full of tension and suspense. I’ll write more about it in a later post.

What do you think you’ll read next: I shall probably read The Inheritance by Louisa May Alcott next, or if not next then by the end of the month as it’s the book chosen by my book group for our May meeting.

Synopsis:

Written in 1849, when Louisa May Alcott was just seventeen years old, this is a captivating tale of Edith Adelon, an impoverished Italian orphan who innocently wields the charms of virtue, beauty, and loyalty to win her true birthright. Her inheritance, nothing less than the English estate on which she is a paid companion, is a secret locked in a long-lost letter. But Edith is loath to claim it _ for more important to her by far is the respect and affection of her wealthy patrons, and the love of a newfound friend, the kind and noble Lord Percy. This novel is Alcott writing under the influence of the gothic romances and sentimental novels of her day. The introduction considers early literary influences in the light of Alcott’s mature style